Wright surprised by Common Core controversy

State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright said she is a little surprised by the Common Core controversy generated by Gov. Phil Bryant, who last month said the state should change its academic goals, even if Wright wants to stick with the standards.

During a Hattiesburg American editorial board meeting Wednesday, Wright said the standards shouldn't really be all that divisive.

"If you look at the standards, they're simply what you would want a child to know and do from kindergarten to 12th grade," she said.

Wright said the developers of the standards looked at the highest-performing countries all across the world and based the Common Core on those countries' standards so American students could be college- and career-ready.

"I'm not sure what the controversy is over," she said.

She also said Bryant initially supported the standards and signed a document to keep Mississippi a member of the PARCC consortia, which was developing assessments to go with the standards.

"When Mississippi first joined the consortia, Gov. Barbour was here. (He signed a memorandum of understanding)," she said. "When Gov. Bryant was elected, he signed the same memorandum of understanding."

Wright said she and the state board of education fully support the standards.

"We believe that these standards are incredibly rigorous and will allow our students to compete internationally and globally," she said.

On the same day Bryant made his comments about Common Core, he also had some things to say about Wright.

"What the superintendent needs to understand is that she's not in charge of public education in Mississippi. The public is," he said.

Wright said she believes the state board of education is her boss.

"I'm pretty clear on who hired me," she said. "And they hired me to do the best I can to take care of (public) education (in this state)."

Wright said developing a completely new set of standards would be a "huge" task for Mississippi.

"When you think of the time and energy and the people who got together to create these standards — they gathered the greatest minds in the nation and they were being funded by a non-profit," she said. "It would take us hundreds of millions of dollars to get this done, and it won't happen overnight."

Wright said she didn't want to comment on any of the efforts to get full state funding for education, be it the lawsuit headed by former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove or the Better Schools, Better Jobs amendment.

"The (state) board has not had a discussion or taken any position, so I don't want to get ahead of my board," she said.

Wright said she had a number of goals for 2015, including making sure superintendents know how students in grades K-3 are being diagnosed for literacy proficiency. This is the first year, according to state law, that students will be held back if they are not proficient in reading by the third grade.

She also wants to work on early childhood education.

"We need to expand the opportunities for children to experience early childhood education," she said.

Wright also said it's important to make sure students are college- and career-ready. She said $35 million is spent on remedial courses for students who come to college unprepared.